I had visited more than a few alien dockyards while delivering merchandise across the cosmos. This one wasn’t really any different, although there were ships I hadn’t seen before. Ordinarily, I would have scanned them with interest. Today, I just pulled my pink scarf higher over my face, and passed them by.
But as soon as Yani and I entered the market, I noticed distinct differences from others I had seen. Most had tents with bright awnings to showcase the wares of multitudes of vendors. Due to the wind and driving sand, this one had permanent roofed structures.
The cross section of species among the customers was familiar, though, as were the vendors shouting out their latest supposedly irresistible deals. Most of the market patrons had likely arrived in the spaceships at the dockyard. A few could have passed for human, although if you looked closely enough, you detected they weren’t.
Then a three-foot, four-legged, round bodied form stepped in front of us and waved squinted eyes at the ends of long stalks.
Squinted, because the blowing sand made anything else nearly impossible. For just an instant, I expected it to wave a banana in my face and proclaim it a carrot. But this Vrep had adapted to its surroundings rather well.
It instead waved a piece of brown meshed cloth at me. “Mask?” it offered hopefully in Primal.
My eyes narrowed. “Used or new?”
The eyestalks quivered. “New, of course,” it protested.
“They are rather ugly,” Yani stated. “But I am tired of eating sand.”
We bought two off the Vrep, and it trotted off toaccost another Drolgok. There were a few around. No Drakes, though. Not a single one.
As I wound the mask over my nose and mouth, my own Drakes were a permanent component of my thoughts—and I caught repeated glimpses through their eyes. They were walking a sand-blasted street, angling closer to Brentoq’s stronghold. I sensed their satisfaction that the locals wrote them off as Nirzks on a stroll—the manticores were the only other two-legged aliens of any size on their street. The storm definitely helped them to blend—pedestrians emerged and disappeared into it so rapidly it was difficult to get a good look.
I pulled my attention back to the other marketgoers. Because it wasn’t only the vendor buildings that made this place unlike any market I’d ever visited.
The biggest difference had to do with the local population.
They were the grease that made the market run smoothly, escorting vendors to their assigned booths, arranging tables and racks, providing security and sanitation duties.
And they were all slaves.
They even wore collars. Most were a humanoid species with spots over their skin, but there were others as well. And you also didn’t have to look far to recognize their masters.
Because the Nirzks were everywhere.
It was the first time I’d seen them in anything other than pictures. They strutted through the marketplace like the lords they clearly believed they were. Males, mostly, with full manes of hair often twisted into knots or held high with elaborate combs. But then I saw a female…
She was larger and more heavily muscled than the males, and with a shaved head—only a couple of small ponytails of coarse hair had been saved. I had a hard time not staring at the four large breasts pushed up by an elaborate bustier. Then something waved over her shoulder—and I saw the tail.
Much longer than a Drake’s, it arched over her head and had abulbous tip armed with a wicked stinger, just like a scorpion back on Earth. When I glanced to the males that accompanied her, I realized they had them too, but most kept them so low that their cloaks disguised them. Only one held his high.
Yani leaned close. “The alpha of her harem,” she whispered.
I ripped my eyes from him and back to the female. She was—grotesque. It was the only word to describe her appearance. She was also powerful. But the cruelty that stamped her flattened features robbed her of anything positive that should come along with it. This was what had hold of Zyair? My eyes flicked to her tail, and my stomach clenched.
“Come on,” Yani said, taking my arm. “Think the mechanical sector is this way.”
She steered me through booths that offered everything from baked goods to jewelry. I paused—very briefly—to buy a dozen sweet gooey pastries, remembering how Xandros’s eyes had lit up at the one Yani had given him. The stuff drizzled over them even tasted like chocolate.
Perhaps understanding my need to believe Xandros would return to eat them, Yani didn’t complain at the delay. But she moved us swiftly through the booths afterward. They took on a distinctly utilitarian feel as we passed among a conglomeration of spare parts, new and otherwise.
Moments later, Yani was immersed in a discussion with an alien who had four limbs and weirdly articulated fingers. He escorted her into a labyrinth of a booth, with shelves higher than my head, loaded with a mishmash of parts. After diving into the mess, he emerged with a shield actuator.
“How much?” Yani spoke in Primal.
He—I think it was a he, difficult to be sure—named a price that would have had my eyes popping. Yani merely snorted a laugh and named something that halved it.
He fluffed his pink fur. “That is not even what I paid for it.”
Yani tilted her head. “Then you paid too much.”
